écartévséclateWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: écarté is a noun, éclate is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“écarté” is a noun and “éclate” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#11,691
“écarté” frequency rank
#7,390
“éclate” frequency rank
19081
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature écarté éclate
Definition Jeu de cartes qui se joue à deux et où l’on peut écarter tout ou partie des cartes. Première personne du singulier du présent de l’indicatif de éclater.

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set écarté and éclate apart are highlighted. They share 4 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

6 ch
écarté
6 ch
éclate

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: écarté is \e.kaʁ.te\ while éclate is \e.klat\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 19081, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

écarté is recorded at frequency rank #11,691, classified as anoun, pronounced \e.kaʁ.te\. éclate is at rank #7,390, tagged as averb, pronounced \e.klat\.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 19081, this pair ranks #375,117 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of écarté vs éclate

Shared letters: acté. Private to "écarté": r. Private to "éclate": el.

"écarté" · 6 letters · shape VCVCCV  ·  "éclate" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCV

Frequency comparison

écarté#11,691
éclate#7,390

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "écarté" and "éclate" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "écarté" is a noun and "éclate" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "écarté" or "éclate"?
"éclate" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,390 in our French list, against #11,691 for "écarté". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Remembering écarté vs éclate

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

  • Check the role first: if you need a noun, it's “écarté”; for a verb, it's “éclate”.
  • See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “écarté” entry
  • Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list FrequencyWords open word-frequency list